Disney Plus doing Jilly Cooper's Rivals

[countrylifer]

This is just the best news. I've been waiting for an adaptation of Rivals since I first fell in love with the bounder Rupert C-B in circa 1997.

But the question is who will play him? I can't think of anyone off the top of my head who can fill those boots - any suggestions?

It’s really difficult for me to ‘cast’ current actors because I read the books from 1995 onwards. So to me, Declan is a young Eamon Holmes type. And James Vereker is an OTT Richard Madely. Maud is Helena Bonham Carter. Etc etc. it’s just all those people are not 35-42 anymore.

i think Claire Foy would be wonderful as Maud or Valerie

Absolutely agree (and am also far too invested in this 😂)- maybe there’s room for a hybrid MN thread crossing Rightmove with location spotting 🤔
I bet they’re reading this in the name of audience research

Yes I think we're just supposed to not like her as she stands between Lizzie and Freddie.

I too had Cameron as blonde punk? Have to re-read the first bits again

Ooh so exciting, I can't remember much about the book, time for a re-read.

Love the idea of Edward Norton or Joel Kinnerman for RCB although Rupert Penry Jones is my first thought.

For Taggi - Ella Purnell (attached). She's only 25 but looks younger. Huge eyes. British.

All these casting suggestions from people and no one (or hardly anyone) has suggested anyone non-white! For a 2020s update I think RCB will remain blonde and blue eyed but that Taggie will be mixed race or black. Antonia Thomas would be great but she's in her 30s so too old.

And of course other leading characters won't be white, but I can't remember about them to suggest any actors.

Oh my god I'm beside myself - can't decide if with excitement or dread. Rivals is my ultimate comfort read and if they fuck this up I will be VERY upset!

I have always thought of Cameron as blonde but I just grabbed this from my kindle app (yes I'm sad) and I am quite wrong!

She had a lean, wonderfully rapacious body, long legs, very short dark hair sleeked back from her thin face, and a clear olive skin. With her straight black brows, angry, slightly protruding amber eyes, beaky nose and predatory mouth, she reminded him of a bird of prey

I think Kirby Howell-Baptiste would be a brilliant Maud too

@Arconia And what about the guy from Good Luck to You Leo Grande as her brother Patrick? He’s gorgeous, and I think young looking enough to get the whole swaggering student thing - and he’s Irish so he’d have the accent nailed!

How about Thandiwe Newton as Maud? She’s the right age and I think she could do that ever so slightly brittle thing really well. It’s got to be someone that has or can do a proper Irish accent though.

I think a Chinese American actress would be amazing as the haughty Cameron.
Im not sure Taggie can be mixed race though, mainly because there’s such a storyline later about them adopting a black baby and if Taggie was also black I don’t think it would have been an “issue” in the same way. Plus Maud is described very clearly as having red hair.
i don’t see why James Vereker couldn’t be black or mixed race, or Freddie (although he’s described as having red gold curls).
It’s a great question though - do they need to fit with the book descriptions?

Anne hathaway would be a fab taggie

Her look is very good but I think they’d struggle to age her down 20 years.

^From Hilary Rose in The Times this morning:
'Hurrah for Disney+, which is making an eight-part TV adaptation of Rivals, Jilly Cooper’s seminal novel, which sits in pride of place on my shelves next to all her others. The series promises to capture “the joy, drama, excess and brazen power-grabbing of the affluent elite in 1980s England”, which is thrilling. It also promises to bring “a 2020s lens to the 1980s”, which is less so. How? Why?Anyway. Who should play everyone’s favourite hot showjumping cad? Cooper herself has said, “Let the hunt commence,” and I don’t need telling twice. I toyed briefly with the idea of Patrick Dempsey from Grey’s Anatomy, as long as he could master an English accent, but ultimately he’s too twinkly. Colin Firth isn’t caddish enough, Hugh Grant is already synonymous with the cad in Bridget Jones, Rupert Friend might work, Jamie ^Dornan is fabulous . . . all excellent actors, but not quite right. Then it hit me: Rupert Penry-Jones. The right looks, the right accent, the right glint of danger from his Spooks days and I’m sure he’d look ever so nice on a horse. Penry-Jones for Campbell-Black. I’m right, aren’t I? I’m sensing a new career, if being a prison officer doesn’t work out.'

Nnnoooooooo
I don't have Disney

Wwwaaaaaahhhhhhhh

Merhinks hilary rose is on this thread!

If they’re not going to ask me to be me (and I’m still sitting by the phone absent mindedly trimming my split ends with bacon fatty scissors) , then I might accept Lucy, yes.

Definitely definitely Liam Neeson for Declan.

Hilary Rose is suggesting people far too old surely?! Colin Firth and Hugh Grant could have done it at the time, but not now!

Agree. And it’s such a shame because those 2 would be BRILLIANT.

Love Liam Neeson but I think he's too old for Declan now. I think Cillian Murphy would be great but possibly a bit too beautiful.

Hugh Grant would be good as Rupert's father. Is he in Rivals? I remember him from a wedding scene.

Which is easily fixed once the series is on!

@LittleBearPad I'm a little bit clueless to technology, I'd be beyond grateful for clues !

You subscribe to Disney. It’s a streaming service that’s widely available.

www.disneyplus.com/en-gb

That’s right. He chats to Rupert’s mother - her cook died, before lunch!!

No, he appears at the wedding but that isn't until Polo. And he is at the fabulous Christmas at Penscombe bit in Appassionata.